Vietnam War: Encyclopedia II - Vietnam War - Intervention by the USA

Vietnam War - Intervention by the USA

Vietnam War - Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin

Johnson raised the level of U.S. involvement on July 27, 1964, when 5,000 additional U.S. military advisors were ordered to South Vietnam. This brought the total number of U.S. forces in Vietnam to 21,000.

On July 31, 1964, the US destroyer Maddox was in international waters conducting a reconnaissance mission in the Gulf of Tonkin. Critics of President Johnson have suggested the purpose of the mission was to provoke a reaction from North Vietnamese coastal defense forces as a pretext for a wider war. North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked Maddox and in response, with the help of air support from the nearby carrier Ticonderoga, she destroyed one of the torpedo boats, damaging two others. Maddox suffered only superficial damage and retired to South Vietnamese waters where she was joined by C. Turner Joy.

On August 3, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN or South Vietnam) again attacked North Vietnam; the Rhon River estuary and the Vinh Sonh radar installation were bombarded under cover of darkness.

On August 4, a new DESOTO patrol to the North Vietnam coast was launched, with Maddox and Turner Joy. The latter got radar signals later claimed to be another attack by the North Vietnamese. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of torpedoes. Later, Captain John J. Herrick admitted that it was nothing more than an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing the ship's own propeller beat".

However, the incident was portrayed by Johnson as an act of "unprovoked aggression" on the part of the PAVN. This assertion, that the Maddox and Turner Joy had been unlawfully attacked in international waters, was also picked up by the American press. This allowed Johnson to offer to the US Congress a resolution to increase the American involvement in Vietnam, a document that had been crafted earlier in the summer of 1964.

In consequence the U.S. Senate approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964, which gave broad support to President Johnson to escalate U.S. involvement in the war "as the President shall determine". The resolution passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and was opposed in the Senate only by Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska. In a televised speech, Morse asserted that history would show that he and Gruening were serving "the best interests of the American people". In a separate televised address, President Johnson claimed, "the challenge that we face in South-East Asia today is the same challenge that we have faced with courage and that we have met with strength in Greece and Turkey, in Berlin and Korea, in Lebanon and in Cuba." National Security Council members, including Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, and Maxwell Taylor agreed on November 28, 1964, to recommend Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.

With the decision to escalate its involvement in the conflict, The USA's ANZUS Pact allies, Australia and New Zealand, were pressured to contribute troops and material to the war effort. As a result, in late 1964 the Australian government controversially re-introduced conscription for compulsory military service by eligible males aged 18-25, and many Australian soldiers served alongside U.S. troops. (Without the need for U.S. pressure, a few thousand Canadians would also serve.)

Vietnam War - Operation Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder was the code name for bombing raids in North Vietnam conducted by the United States armed forces during the Vietnam War. Its purpose was to destroy the will of the North Vietnamese to fight, to destroy industrial bases and air defenses (SAMs), and to stop the flow of men and supplies down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail.

Starting in March 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder gradually escalated in intensity to force the Communists to negotiate. Although half North Vietnam's bridges were destroyed and many supply depots hit, its Communist allies were always able to resupply it. The two principal areas where supplies came from, Haiphong and the Chinese border, were off limits to aerial attack, as were fighter bases. Restrictions on the bombing of civilian areas also enabled the North Vietnamese to use them for military purposes, siting anti-aircraft guns on school grounds. Rolling Thunder's gradual escalation has been blamed for its failure, by giving the North Vietnamese time to adapt.

In March 1968 Operation Rolling Thunder was suspended after the North agreed to negotiate in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive.

Vietnam War - U.S. forces committed

In February 1965 the U.S. base at Pleiku was attacked twice, killing over a dozen U.S. military. This provoked the reprisal air strikes of Operation Flaming Dart in North Vietnam, the first time a U.S. air strike was launched because its forces had been attacked in South Vietnam. That same month the U.S. began independent air strikes in the South. A U.S. HAWK team was sent to Da Nang, a vulnerable airbase if Hanoi intended to bomb it. One result of Operation Flaming Dart was the shipment of anti-aircraft missiles to North Vietnam which began in a few weeks from the Soviet Union.

On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines became the first US combat troops to land in South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 US military advisers already in place. The air war escalated as well; on July 24, 1965, four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi became the targets of antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against US planes in the war. One plane was shot down and the other three sustained damage. Four days later Johnson announced another order that increased the number of US troops in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. The day after that, July 29, the first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrived in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.

On August 18, 1965, Operation Starlite began as the first major US ground battle of the war when 5,500 US Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quảng Ngãi Province. The Marines were tipped off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the US base at Chu Lai. The Viet Cong learned from their defeat and tried to avoid fighting a US-style war from then on.

The North Vietnamese committed regular army troops to South Vietnam beginning in late 1964 to use guerilla and regular forces to wear down and destroy the South Vietnamese Army. However some North Vietnamese officials favored an immediate invasion, and a plan was drawn up to use PAVN forces to split South Vietnam in two at the Central Highlands, and then to defeat each half. However in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley the PAVN suffered heavy casualties, prompting a return to guerilla tactics.

The Pentagon told President Johnson on November 27, 1965, that if planned major sweep operations needed to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year were to succeed, the number of US troops in Vietnam needed to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. By the end of 1965, 184,000 US troops were in Vietnam. In February 1966 there was a meeting between the commander of the US effort, head of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam General William Westmoreland and Johnson in Honolulu. Westmoreland argued that the US presence had prevented a defeat but that more troops were needed to take the offensive, he claimed that an immediate increase could lead to the "crossover point" in Vietcong and NVA casualties being reached in early 1967. Johnson authorized an increase in troop numbers to 429,000 by August 1966.

The large increase of troop numbers enabled Westmoreland to carry out numerous search and destroy operations in accordance with his attrition strategy. In January 1966 during Operation Masher/White Wing in Binh Dinh Province the U.S. 1^st Cavalry Division killed 1,342 Viet Cong by repeatedly marching through the area. The Operation continued under Thayer/Irving until October where a further 1,000 Viet Cong were killed and numerous others wounded and captured. US forces conducted numerous forays into Viet Cong controlled "War Zone C", an area northwest of the densely populated Saigon area and near the Cambodian border, in Operations Birmingham, El Paso, and Attleboro. In 1^st Corp Tactical Zone (CTZ) located in the Northern provinces of South Vietnam North Vietnamese conventional forces entered Quang Tri province. Fearing an assault on Quang Tri city might develop, U.S. Marines initiated Operation Hastings which caused the North Vietnamese to retreat over the DMZ. Afterwards, a follow-up operation called Prairie began. "Pacification", or the securing of the South Vietnamese countryside and people, was mostly conducted by the ARVN. However, morale was poor in the South Vietnamese army due to corruption and incompetence of generals and hence little was accomplished in the form of pacification other than high desertion rates.

On 12 October 1967, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk stated during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam's opposition. Johnson then held a secret meeting with a group of the nation's most prestigious leaders ("the Wise Men") on November 2 and asked them to suggest ways to unite the US people behind the war effort. Johnson announced on November 17 that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking....We are making progress." Following up on this, General William Westmoreland on November 21 told news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing." Nevertheless it was recognized that although the communists were taking a major beating, true victory could not come until the country was pacified.

Most of the PAVN operational capability was possible due only to the movement of supplies along the Hồ Chí Minh Trail in Laos. In order to threaten this flow of supplies, a firebase was set up just on the Vietnam side of the Laosian border, near the town of Khe Sanh. The U.S. planned to use the base as a launching point for raids against the trail. Also, the U.S. launched first in its kind, electronic warfare project. This $2.5 billion project involved "wiring" the trail with sensors connected to data processing centers in order to monitor the traffic on the trail. It was one of the most highly classified operations in the war (from "Boyd" by Robert Coram, p. 268). To the PAVN leaders this looked like a wonderful opportunity to repeat their famous victory at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and hand the USA a massive defeat. Over the next few months both the PAVN and US Marines added forces to the area, with the Battle of Khe Sanh "officially" starting on January 21^st, 1968. Every PAVN attempt to take the base was repulsed with heavy casualties, and even their rear areas were under constant attack by U.S. airpower, including B-52 strikes. When the battle finally petered out in April, the PAVN had lost an estimated 8,000 KIA and many more wounded, while never seriously threatening resupply into the base (an important feature of Điện Biên Phủ) due to the U.S.'s massive resupply ability and helicopter support. In retrospect it appears the PAVN was using the battle to draw U.S. attention away from other operations being developed, but this position appears difficult to support considering the loss of about one-third of the attacking force KIA alone.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Intervention by the USA", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki